THEY WERE LIFESAVERS TO THE multitudes who struggled to keep their heads and hopes above water, whether against the torrents of destruction or the slow currents of despair.

They were the volunteers and donors who, in countless ways, helped the battered populace?and the nation?s downcast spirit?recover from the devastation wrought by Tropical Storm ?Ondoy.?

The Inquirer salutes them as the 2009 Filipino of the Year.

When it was wiser to just quit and finally catch his breath, 18-year-old construction worker Muelmar Magallanes dove back into the raging flood. In the sinking slums, a mother with a baby was still screaming. They were the last two of about 30 lives he would save that day?before losing his own.

When there really was no shame in watching from the sidelines after one?s own family had been spared from harm, tens of thousands went out of their way to help total strangers and form human chains of charity.

Barangay Captain Roger Frias of San Jose braving rains and floods stayed on duty day and night to make sure the 93,000 families in his village in Rizal were safe, fed and sheltered.

Paddling his family?s two-seater kayak through the strong current inundating Marikina City, Juan Paolo Mateo saved five people.

While the economic slump was tightening many belts, aid still came in massive waves. Donations poured in from the famous and the faceless, the rich and the not-yet-rich, as well as from companies and foreign governments.

Without being asked, they rescued trapped souls, even coming back for abandoned pets. Some wrote generous checks, many logged cheerful hours packing relief goods, others personally comforted the sick and the sad.

5M lives

Going by official figures, their acts of compassion rippled across the lives of five million Filipinos affected by Ondoy in Metro Manila and 26 provinces.

According to the National Disaster Coordinating Council (NDCC), Ondoy (international name: Ketsana) killed 464 people, injured 529, and left 37 missing. The 19th storm to enter the country last year also left 70,000 people homeless and destroyed P11 billion worth of crops and infrastructure.

However, the trauma from that dark Saturday afternoon of Sept. 26 can never be reduced to numbers.

In just six hours, Ondoy dumped what was normally a month?s worth of rain, stunning even the weathermen and instantly turning communities, including those that had never before gone underwater, into murky lakes.

Magnificent, massive response

Some of the most harrowing scenes occurred in Provident Village, a middle-class subdivision in Marikina City, where residents climbed trees or escaped to rooftops as the deluge engulfed even two-story homes.

From there, a shocked nation learned of the first sightings of corpses adrift with cars and furniture.

The bigger, frightful picture didn?t take long to emerge. TV news and websites would later run eyewitness videos: Floodwaters washing away vehicles, some with people still in them, ramming one into another; a cluster of men clinging for dear life onto a floating mound of debris, hurtling down a swollen river, passing beneath a nearly submerged bridge and disappearing from sight; a refrigerator sailing down a flooded street till it got caught in a web of power cables, where the receding water left it hanging precariously?some 20 feet off the ground.

When the skies finally cleared, Ondoy?s unparalleled fury drew a humanitarian response of a scale and level unseen in recent memory. As reports of bitter losses piled up in the days that followed, so did the tales of heroism, sacrifice and inspiration.

Jet ski, free laundry

Gestures big and small were all deemed noble in their own right, mitigating the lack of government aid and response to calamities.

On the day the storm hit, from 4 p.m. to midnight, Quezon City Judge Ralph Lee personally hauled trapped residents to safer ground?two or three at a time?using his jet ski. The Novaliches neighborhood, where his initiative saved about a hundred people, later hailed him as ?superman.?

The Kalinisan Steam Laundry Inc. offered its services for free. It also turned its warehouse into an evacuation center for about a hundred families.

Parishes, schools, companies, and civic groups set up networks of relief-processing centers, where thousands of volunteers worked in shifts for weeks.

At the Ateneo de Manila?s covered courts, for example, groups of 600 people at a time took turns preparing relief packages. ABS-CBN?s Sagip Kapamilya listed up to 16,000 donors in operations that kicked off within hours after the storm and lasted up until November. GMA 7?s Kapuso Foundation also held fund-raisers and relief operations nonstop for affected areas. In about the same period, the lobby of the Inquirer office in Makati City doubled as a warehouse and packaging area.

The Catholic Church through Caritas Manila raised millions of pesos, even as someone writing on a website for ?Filipino atheists? exhorted peers to do their share, saying: ?We may have different beliefs, but we are one with the rest of the Philippines in light of this tragedy. Two hands helping trump a thousand clasped in prayer.?

Posting Ondoy videos

Writing later on Facebook, a diligent volunteer recounted how she made sure there was powdered milk in every bag of groceries she packed. But she also nitpicked at how some people mindlessly donated tutus, lacy dresses, floral gowns. Give the evacuees some ?dignity,? she pleaded.

A top honcho of San Miguel Corp. offered to buy up to 50 motorized boats just to speed up rescue and relief efforts, while the Philippine Inter-Island Shipping Association offered to ferry relief goods for free.

A cyber-junkie identified only as Kaninlamig (?leftover rice?) created an interactive Google map alerting action teams to various emergency situations, including areas hit by brownouts or traffic gridlocks.

More netizens helped keep the world abreast by posting Ondoy videos, blogs and morale-boosting shoutouts. ?Where I?m from, everyone?s a hero,? read one proud slogan that spread across social networking sites.

Albay, itself a storm-weary province, sent volunteers to Manila even while its local officials were keeping close watch on Mayon Volcano. In Laguna, public school teachers agreed to hold classes in their own homes while their campuses sheltered the homeless.

The NDCC said the country?s international appeal for funds raised a total of $26 million or P1.2 billion (as of November 2009). The Department of Foreign Affairs, meanwhile, reported a flurry of contributions from overseas Filipinos.

Even dogs were rescued

Telecom firms set up ?libreng tawag? (free calls) centers, hospitals sent out medical teams, and a popular bookstore and school supply chain made sure the relief centers never run out of adhesive tape.

?Twiggy,? ?Julia,? ?Stanley? and ?Lyndon? were the names given to some of the stranded dogs found alive in the sunken villages days after the storm, thanks to a mission led by the Animal Rescue Pilipinas coalition.

Rescuers perished

Muelmar Magallanes swam and grabbed a mother and her 6-month-old daughter just when the baby, kept afloat in a Styrofoam box, was about to be swept away by the flood in Bagong Silangan, Quezon City. While trying to rescue more neighbors later, a wall collapsed on the otherwise strong swimmer and a TV set fell on his head, killing him instantly, witnesses said.

Several more rescuers perished doing their mission. Among them were from a team that fanned out in Laguna composed of members of the Philippine Army and the Citizen Armed Force Geographical Units (Cafgu), namely: Pfc. Venancio Ancheta, Cpl. Adriano Regua, Joel Hernalin, Erineo Olaguer, Pedro Montefalcon and Artemio Descotido.

The Senate passed resolutions hailing Magallanes, Ancheta and Regua. Time Magazine applauded Magallanes as one of its Top 10 Heroes of 2009.

Instant noodles

Ondoy was immediately followed by a few more ferocious storms that year.

Typhoon ?Pepeng? blew in a week later, as did typhoon ?Ramil? after two weeks, wreaking fresh havoc on a land whose September wounds had barely healed.

Still, it was Ondoy?s sheer violence?and violations of the people?s sense of security?that would leave the deepest scar on the collective psyche.

In time, the pain became bearable. The blank stares and anguished faces gradually lightened up. Relief goods continued to pour in, so much so, instant noodles were coming out of the evacuees? ears ... Suddenly there was reason to laugh again.

?I will not forget?

Thanks to the volunteers and donors for whom selflessness is either a divine spark or a patriotic duty, a ?feel-good? adventure, an instinctive response in any crisis, an investment in good karma or an end in itself.

We honor the Ondoy heroes in the best way we know how together with a prayer of thanksgiving.

Menchie Peñalosa, the grateful mother of the baby girl saved by Magallanes said it best for all of us: ?I will never forget.?

SIDEBAR:

How Inquirer editors voted

THE FILIPINO OF THE YEAR is the Inquirer?s way of applauding a living Filipino individual or group who made the biggest positive impact on the life of the nation in the year just past.

Established in 1991, the honor first went to Raymundo Punongbayan, since passed on, for his heroic and single-handed efforts to save lives and educate Filipinos during the Mt. Pinatubo eruptions.

An exception was made in 2004 when the Inquirer editors voted almost unanimously for presidential candidate and movie king Fernando Poe Jr., a few days after he died.

For 2009, the ?Ondoy? volunteers and donors emerged as the predominant choice, earning 20 of the 36 votes cast by editors and assistant editors, from among six nominees.

?Pushcart? educator and CNN Hero of the Year Efren Peñaflorida placed second with six votes.

Leila de Lima, chair of the Commission on Human Rights, received four.

Two teens, superstars in their own fields, also made it to the roster: International singing sensation Charice Pempengco earned three votes while chess grandmaster Wesley So got two.

A vote went to a group which, technically, may be considered an Ondoy volunteer team since it sprang into action during the calamity. But the Buklod Tao People?s Organization earned its own special place in the list of nominees for its community-based disaster-preparedness programs, an example of which resulted in zero casualty in Barangay Banaba, a riverside community in San Mateo, Rizal.

Other Filipino of the Year honorees were Haydee Yorac (1992), Juan Flavier (1993), Overseas Filipino Workers (1994); The Filipino Everyman - Juan and Juana dela Cruz (1995), Fidel V. Ramos (1996), Corazon Aquino and Jaime Cardinal Sin (1997), Joseph Estrada (1998), Corazon Aquino (1999), Chief Justice Hilario Davide (2000), Supreme Court Justices (2001), Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (2002), Manny Pacquiao (2003), Fernando Poe Jr. (2004), SEA Games Filipino Athletes (2005), Antonio Meloto (2006), Gov. Ed Panlilio (2007) and Manny Pacquiao (2008).

Aquino and Pacquiao, having been voted twice, are in the Inquirer?s Filipino of the Year hall of fame.